Delhi’s Scrabble Championships

Nitya Chagti was the clear favorite in the Annual Delhi State Scrabble Championship 2013.

Nitya Chagti plays Scrabble for India.

So when the 16 year old sat down to compete in the Annual Delhi State Scrabble Championship at the weekend, she looked, and spoke, like the clear favorite.

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“This tournament is like a practice session,” said Ms. Chagti who is one of a handful of Indians in her age group and the only one from Delhi going to represent the country at the World Youth Scrabble Championships in the United Arab Emirates this month.

Her opponent, Umang Kejriwal, 15, seemed resigned to his fortune before play between the two had even started. “I expect to lose,” he said flatly.

Ninety players representing 11 schools from across Delhi had gathered in the basement and library of the Heritage School in Rohini a suburb in the north west of the capital Saturday to compete in five rounds each of 50 minutes.

The students were divided into three groups, according to ages 8-11, 11-15 and 15-18. Those with the highest score and the largest spread on the board, or who remained undefeated in all five rounds, took home the top prizes

By the end of the day, they’d been whittled down to two: Ms. Chagti of Sardar Patel Vidyalaya School, and Mr. Kejriwal of Bal Bharati Public School, Pitampura, facing off over the black and beige checkered deluxe Scrabble board, which has a swivel function.

Ms. Chagti went first. “Joke” she spelled out in tiles, earning her 30 points.

Mr. Kejriwal countered with “fane.” Ms. Chagti challenged the existence of the word. She was wrong. Fane, an archaic term for a temple or shrine was allowed, costing Ms. Chagti five points as a penalty for an incorrect challenge.

By the eighth turn, the players, each eager to topple the other, resorted to more challenges: Ms. Chagti was incorrect to contest “Dor”, a large dung beetle, and “Tod”, bushy foliage.

But she continued to dominate with 209 points over Mr. Kejriwal’s 153, putting down “Ixia”, worth 21. Ixia is a South Africa plant in the iris family.

Then she decided to shuffle her tiles and skip a turn.

Participation in the tournament has grown since it began in 2005 but sometimes the most promising competitors drop out to focus on their studies, said Marisha Sharma, president of the Scrabble Association of Delhi.

There were just 13 entrants when the competition began.

“Students and parents tend to prioritize studies. They opt out of crucial games for the sake of exams,” Ms. Sharma said.

Competitive Scrabble is a fairly new phenomenon in India. Compared to the United States, where the first officially sanctioned tournaments were held in 1970s, the game arrived in India in 2003, according to Ashok Bhandarkar, president of the Scrabble Association of India.

The Internet helped groups to come together in cities and let players practice online and access information about the game. Online dictionaries have shaved time off competitions – the existence of words can be verified in seconds, replacing bulky paper versions.

There are seven other Scrabble clubs across the country in Mumbai, Pune, Goa, Hyderabad, Cochin, Chennai and Kolkata but a lack of corporate funding has made it difficult to sponsor large tournaments. The SAI has 200 registered members and there is a national annual competition in Mumbai.

“Unfortunately, this is not a spectator sport like cricket,” Mr. Bhandarkar said. “It is difficult for us to promote. Like chess, you have to be very quiet and this is a difficult sell with sponsors.”

There were no spectators or sponsors at the tournament yesterday but as tiles and time ran out, Mr. Kejriwal inched closer to Ms. Chagti’s score.

With no more tiles remaining in the bag, Ms. Chagti laid down her last word of the game: “Air”, for 6 points. Mr. Kejriwal retaliated with “gob”, a lump of a slimy substance, and went from underdog to winner by 21 points and claimed the overall victory – undefeated in all five matches.

Ms. Chagti brushed off the unexpected defeat.

“I have the internationals coming up so this does not matter,” she said.

But it did, to Mr. Kejriwal. “I was not expecting this,” he said with a half-smile and a shrug.

Suryatapa Bhattacharya is a Delhi-based journalist and former foreign correspondent with The National in Abu Dhabi. Before that, she worked for The Toronto Star. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times blog, India Ink, Foreign Policy and The Globe and Mail. Follow India Real Time on Twitter @WSJIndia.

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